Call for papers for the international conference ‘Languages of the Wider World: understanding resilience and shift in regional and minority languages’. The deadline has now been extended until 19th January 2011.To submit a proposal, please write an abstract of no more than 250 words, indicating the appropriate theme and send it to mercator (arroba) fryske-akademy (punt) nl. Below you can read the original call for papers.  ‘Languages of the Wider World’: Understanding Resilience and Shift in Regional and Minority languages.

International Conference: 7-8th April 2011 FRYSKE AKADEMY, LEEUWARDEN, FRIESLAND, THE NETHERLANDS

Call for papers

This is the second international conference organised jointly by the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning of the Fryske Akademy (The Netherlands,
www.mercator-research.eu) and the SOAS-UCL Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning ‘Languages of the Wider World’ (LWW CETL) (UK, www.lww-cetl.ac.uk). The conference will take place in the charming city of Leeuwarden, the capital of the bilingual province Frysl (Netherlands). The venue is the ‘Aljemint’, conference centre of the Fryske Akademy.

All people have the right to learn and use their mother-tongue, and to learn a second and third language. This formal right is often absent and its use in practice is often less well guaranteed and less developed than should be the case, especially for speakers of smaller or lesser used languages variously labelled as ‘regional’, ‘minority’, ‘immigrant’, ‘community’ (including sign languages), ‘heritage’ languages, etc. The conference will focus on theoretical and empirical work in research, teaching and learning of such languages worldwide.

The conference will combine the fields of interest of the partner institutions. The focus of Mercator and the Fryske Akademy is on language learning and transmission of Regional and Minority Languages and smaller state languages in Europe. The SOAS-UCL LWW CETL focuses on languages of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the Netherlands referred to as ‘languages of the wider world’. This conference will bring together researchers and practitioners from these various fields to define, analyse and explore new directions and paradigms in understanding resilience and shift of regional and minority languages. We warmly invite not only researchers and students, but also policy makers, practitioners and interested others to the conference that aims to provide opportunities for discussion, further research and future collaborations.

Keynote Speakers

Richard Bourhis, Professor of Social Psychology, Universit頤u Qu颥c ࠍontr顬, Canada
Ofelia Garcia, Professor of Urban Education, The City University of New York, USA
Waldemar Martyniuk, Executive Director, The European Centre for Modern Languages, Graz, Austria
Ann Pauwels, Professor of Sociolinguistics, SOAS, University of London, UK
Miquel Strubell, Executive Secretary, Linguam